Anan, Japan – In a country better known for copying and improving others’ creations, the invention that was born here in 1993, at a 400-employee company surrounded by farmland, promised nothing less than a better light bulb.
In fact, it was the Holy Grail of lighting technology: the blue light-emitting diode, or LED, which made white light a reality. It offers the prospect of a cheap, long-lasting light source that is expected to replace Edison’s incandescent light bulb.
The invention spurred rapid growth at the company, Nichia, which now has 3,500 workers and enjoys a 50 percent profit margin on $1.8 billion revenues.
But in keeping with the Japanese belief that all salarymen are equal and that the company stands above all, the man who led the inventing team was awarded a bonus of merely $200.
But Shuji Nakamura did not take the move in Japanese stride. He quit, left for a new job in America, and sued. The suit was settled recently, though not amicably, for $8.1 million.
Almost a generation after the peak of Japan’s economic might, companies here are being forced to struggle with ways to reward their most talented workers while hewing to their intrinsic egalitarianism.
As globalization has allowed talented workers to job-hop across continents, some here – who would have willingly sacrificed themselves for their companies until a few years ago – are saying that all salarymen are not equal.
Several inventors have sued their employers, doing the unthinkable in this society that values teamwork above individual talent. Arguing that their individual talent led to huge discoveries and profits at companies such as Toshiba, Canon, Hitachi, Ajinomoto and Mitsubishi Electric, they have sought money.
A lot of money.
“The lawsuit changed the system in all companies in Japan in which scientists and engineers were poorly treated,” Nakamura, now a professor of materials at the University of California at Santa Barbara, said. “I’m very much satisfied by the results that the lawsuit has brought about.”
Experts agree that the effects of Nakamura’s suit will reach beyond the treatment of inventors.
“Such scientists are the forerunners of a changing mind-set among Japan’s salarymen,” said Shigeru Tanaka, president of the Hay Consulting Group in Japan. “They have ownership of their own career development. Nakamura is not an ordinary person, but his case forecasts change among Japan’s ordinary salarymen.”
Time was, most employees’ pay rose according to seniority inside companies where they enjoyed lifetime employment. More recently, to encourage and reward good employees, many companies have introduced performance-based pay.
But the new systems have not been considered successful. They had the opposite effect of lowering morale among employees.
“Now with the performance system, frustration seems to be everywhere, with some people not receiving what they expected or some people getting younger colleagues as bosses,” said Taisuke Kato, general manager of the intellectual property division at Toshiba Corp.
“In the United States, companies can keep employees with high ability and lay off employees not so highly regarded. But in Japan you cannot do that. There are employees who are no good. But we should consider how to survive as a whole.”
